Being able to ask your phone for directions in te reo Māori is just one of the many options that could become available if machines could speak and understand te reo Māori. And that could be set to become a reality.

Iwi media organisation spokesperson Peter Lucas Jones says they’re in the process of making that happen.

Keoni Mahelino says the developers of this project say the world turns and so does the technology.

“Today we can talk to our phones soon will be able to talk to our houses, cars and things like that so these technologies will become more ubiquitous with us right? And unless te reo Māori and other indigenous languages are embedded in these technologies then they're not going to have a place in the future.”

According to research at The University of Otago, an indigenous language dies every two weeks.